A flag for Daniel McDermott

“If other eyes grow dull, other hands slack, and other hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remain to us.”

Gen. John A. Logan, commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, set the agenda for Memorial Day with those and other words on the 5th of May, 1868, when he issued General Orders No. 11, directing all members of that Union band of brothers to gather wherever they might on 30th May that year “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion….”

Logan said nothing about oratory in those orders, but that too has become standard fare. I’ve listened to a fair share and try to avoid it now. That involves dodging Memorial Day programs. Attempting to express the inexpressible seems to cause the best-intentioned and most worthy of souls to say the darndest, sometimes the most aggravating, things.

So I set off before breakfast for Columbia today, well ahead of the morning program, then cut across country south through the stunning Pleasant Township hills to Bethel with a flag for Daniel McDermott.

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Much has changed in 140 years. Old soldiers of the G.A.R. joined their comrades long ago and the scope of the observance has been expanded to include the Confederate dead and all others who have died in defense of U.S. interests real or perceived in all wars before and since that war between the states.

At Columbia, a Confederate battle flag was flying at Nathan Love’s grave --- distinctive among the U.S. flags on other graves.

Decoration Day’s date has been moved from May 30 to the final Monday in May to create a three-day holiday weekend for many; and the day has become for those of us who do such things a secular All Saints and All Souls days rolled into one, the day we decorate the graves of all we have loved or revered or wish to remember, not just those fallen in wars or veterans of them.

For many among the new majority unhitched from place, belonging nowhere, it’s a day to party. I’ve been wished a “Happy Memorial Day.” How bizarre is that?

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Iowa lost 13,000 men in the Civil War, an astonishing percentage of the 76,000 Iowans who served. The number who served is astonishing, too. Iowa’s population at the time was 675,000, only 50,000 more than the estimated 625,000 total of Union and Confederate dead. A third of these soldiers died of wounds; most of the rest of disease. The Civil War remains our most costly war and our most divisive.

Few of the 13,000 men Iowa lost are buried here. Nearly all were interred where they fell and remain there, most in national cemeteries, many if not most among the “unknowns.”

So we honor the Civil War fallen as we always have, by decorating the graves of those who made it home. Small U.S. flags are scattered through virtually all of our cemeteries, many beside government-issue stones that are eroded, discolored, askew and in some cases fallen. It’s been a long time. Other wars are newer; other wounds fresher.

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Daniel McDermott, commemorated at Bethel, died of disease rather than wounds. Unlike most of his comrades, he receives no honor on Memorial Day. This year, at least, there was a flag.

Daniel, born about 1838, was the eldest child of Cedar Township’s first family, born to Nancy and William McDermott before they left Illinois.

About 1845, he accompanied his parents and younger siblings to Marion County and in the fall of 1847, age about 9, was brought by his father and mother to a log cabin quite near where Bethel Church now stands.

The McDermotts, who called the place where they settled Ireland after William’s place of birth, prospered modestly in Cedar Township and for many years were considered to be Lucas County’s first permanent white settlers although they weren't. That honor goes to Hannah and John Ballard, who arrived a year earlier.

Daniel grew up in Cedar Township and enlisted at age 23, on 18 September 1861, in Co. C, 13th Iowa Volunteer Infantry. Mustered into that unit, commanded by Col. M.M. Crocker, near Davenport a few weeks later, he and his comrades were ordered downriver that fall to Benton Barracks, St. Louis, and then beginning on 11 December were taken by train to Missouri’s capital, Jefferson City.

Although there were Confederate insurgents in the Jefferson City area, there is no record of the 13th engaging them. Instead, disease took its toll, the “men being unused to hardships incident to camp life in winter,” according to a regimental history.

Daniel died at Jefferson City on 30 December 1861, slightly more than three months after enlisting.

The military made no provision then for returning remains to loved ones and Daniel's remains most likely rest among the "unknowns" at what now is Jefferson City National Cemetery.

Before the war was done, the 13th had lost 319 enlisted men --- 114 in battle and 205 to disease. Daniel was one of the first.

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Government-issue tombstones, now so familiar, had not yet been thought of when Daniel died, so Nancy and William placed a conventional stone to serve as a cenotaph.

It must have been lovely once, but time has not been kind. First it fell and then it snapped and then it broke again, and again. All that's visible now is the top, inscribed "Daniel, Son of Wm. & N. McDermott."

But the top part of the stone is resting atop the bottom where more is inscribed, including:

Died Dec. 30, 1861
Aged 23 Yrs.
Died in Jefferson City Hospital
while in the service of his country
Co. C, 13 Regt., Iowa Vol. Inf

Perhaps Daniel once received Decoration Day honors, too, and it is the sad condition of his tombstone that has caused him to slip beyond memory. He has no family here --- William McDermott died in 1875 and was buried next to Daniel's stone, but by that time he and Nancy had separated and she had gone west with the remaining members of their family.

I'm not sure what happened to cause Daniel to be forgotten, but it certainly is no one's "fault."

Daniel was no hero. We’ve fallen into the habit lately --- perhaps because of a determination to avoid the indifference shown to Korean War veterans and the hostility shown to veterans of Vietnam --- of calling all who serve in the military in our current wars heroes. Few are. None who are have aspired to be.

Nor, I expect, did Daniel expect to die for us --- just to lay it down. The young, I think, never really expect to die, a reason why old men and women can convince young men and women to fight their wars. But he did. And that is worth honoring and remembering.


All of Daniel McDermott's tombstone was visible in 2005, when this photo was taken.

Blowing in the wind

I have joined the wind-power revolution with an investment that totaled about $7 --- for clothesline and clothespins. Maybe rejoined is a better word since the clothesline poles already were here, oddly sited under a tree that wasn't there when they were installed (think before you plant).

My mother was a hardcore clothesline person who routinely, no matter the weather, removed laundry from the washer, placed it in a basket, averted her eyes from the dryer and marched outside. Even freeze-dried clothes, she maintained, were superior to what came out of that infernal hot air machine. That's why the poles are there, although the line had been removed. It's a family tradition brought in from the farm.

I wish I could say my return to the old way was motivated by enhanced ecological self-consciousness, but that would be only partly true. I do know that dryer use is responsible for about 6 percent of energy consumption by U.S. homes and so line drying is a simple way to conserve.

But it was the three fitted sheets out there swinging in the breeze this morning that finally brought me to it. I'd ironed the top sheets some time ago (yes, I'm obsessive-compulsive enough to enjoy ironing a top sheet; there's a good deal to be said for the satisfaction of watching wrinkles disappear in a cloud of steam), but do not have enough patience to wrestle with fitted sheets and I could not get them to come out of the dryer in an acceptably unwrinkled state (I do not use fabric softener because I'm allergic to it).

So I went to Pamida, invested in line and clothespins and lined out a couple of other loads of laundry before relaundering the sheets. I'm enthusiastic about the result and look forward to many more loads of line-dried laundry (I'll draw the line at freeze-dried, however).

I know folks who live in neighborhoods with covenants where clotheslines are forbidden --- to "protect" property values. How sad.

Spring at Spring Hill

English Township’s Spring Hill Cemetery is a lovely place worth finding --- if you can. Although impeccably maintained by the Lucas County Pioneer Cemetery Commission, it has become more elusive as the years have passed; you need to know the territory now to get there.

When I was a kid, we turned off the Newbern road onto the Spring Hill lane under a lacy arch with the cemetery name on it. That has long since been taken down and now there’s no indication of what’s at the end of this stub of a road, easily missed. The cemetery, tucked into woods, is invisible.

I drove out Monday morning to take photos of Byram family tombstones that I wanted to add to an earlier post about Burns “Doc” Byram, a much-loved physician in his adopted hometown of Marengo and a pilot who died in 1978 near Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico, when the P-51 fighter he was bringing home from Guatemala crashed. Doc, an only child, is buried here with his parents, Burns M. Sr. and Gladys (Scales) Byram, in sight of the farm where they lived. Robert Hullihan’s lovely tribute to Doc Byram is here.


The cemetery itself was founded rather late by Lucas County standards --- not until 1877 when members of the First Presbyterian Church of English Township, organized in 1869, chose the site to serve the congregation and the neighborhood. Many of the organizers --- Duncan Breckinridge, Isaac Cain, C.R. Cowan, Thomas M. Dunshee and G. T. Mayes --- are buried here now with their families.

The setting, about half a mile west of where the church once stood on the main road, is lovely and old maps suggest Spring Hill always has been a little isolated on a site chosen more perhaps for atmosphere than convenience.

First Presbyterian sometimes was called Cain Church, after the Cain family, so the cemetery also has been known as the Cain Church Cemetery or just Cain Cemetery. The old white frame church building, slightly more elaborate than most of its rural counterparts in Lucas County, was taken down during the early 1930s.

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Although this is one of Lucas County’s smallest cemeteries with perhaps only 50 graves, a row of six tombstones that bear chillingly similar death dates speak about one of our greatest family tragedies --- the December 1916 deaths in a Cheyenne, Wyoming, hotel fire of Roy A. and Ethel White and their four young sons, R. Francis, Donald, Guy and Hubert.








The Whites, who lived in California, had returned to English Township in late October 1916 for the funeral of Roy’s Father, John A. White, also buried at Spring Hill. Returning to California by train just before Christmas, the family stopped in Cheyenne on 17 December to visit Fern Patterson, a sister of Ethel White, and checked into the Inter-Ocean Hotel downtown, a three-story brick building dating from the 1870s that was similar to Chariton’s Bates House and in the midst of a remodeling project.

Faulty wiring was blamed for the blaze that broke out about an hour after their arrival, trapping the White family on the third floor. Ethel and her three older sons perished in the flames. Firefighters rescued 9-month-old Hubert, but he died the next day. Roy jumped from a third-floor window and died when he fell into a tangle of live electrical wires.

Standing here now, more than 90 years later with spring sun filtering through the trees that shade the family’s graves and birdsong the only sound, it’s difficult to comprehend such sorrow.

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Several bodies have been removed over the years from Spring Hill and reburied elsewhere for reasons now obscure, although perhaps maintenance lagged once the congregation disbanded or this pretty place came to seem too remote for their survivors’ taste.

John West, who was my great-uncle, and his son, Walter, were among those moved to the Chariton Cemetery. John, who married my grandmother’s half-sister, Eva Prentiss, in 1880, died in his early 50s on 17 November 1906 of tuberculosis. John and Eva and their seven children lived in the neighborhood and were members of the Cain Church, so burial took place at Spring Hill.

Twelve years later, on Jan. 28, 1918, Walter’s boyhood friend and neighbor, Raymond Cain, became the first Lucas Countyan to die in service during World War I --- of blood poisoning while stationed at Fort Logan, Colorado.

Raymond was buried at Spring Hill after services at Cain Church on Friday, Feb.1, and that afternoon Walter, stationed at Camp Pike, Arkansas, died of scarlet fever and pneumonia, the county’s second war-related death. His funeral took place at Cain Church the following Tuesday and he was buried, too, at Spring Hill.

Both now rest with their parents in Chariton, Raymond’s tombstone almost obscured by a massive cottonwood; Walter’s, shaded by oak.

Antibiotics as much as body armor now keep our soldiers safer than they might otherwise be, but such things were not available then --- and as many if not more died of disease rather than wounds during our various wars.

The easiest way to find Spring Hill from Chariton is to drive about two and a half miles north out of town on Highway 14 and turn left (north) onto the gravel road to Newbern as you near the bottom of Whitebreast Hill but before crossing the creek. Follow this road about five miles north as it crosses the Whitebrest bottom then climbs to meander along the ridge. You’re liable to drive right by the lane on the south side of the road leading back to Spring Hill, marked as it is only with a standard sign that reads, “Dead End.”

To find the cemetery from Newbern, well first you have to find Newbern --- and since there’s not much left there these days that’s a challenge in itself.

Cemetery mornings

Now who could ask for a prettier place to take a walk these May mornings than the Chariton Cemetery. I was heading south here this morning toward the little restroom building constructed in 1929, complete with fireplace, so that cemetery visitors would have a place to rest once they got here. It's kept locked most of the time these days, but would be in immaculate condition --- if someone would sweep up the dead flies all over the highly polished hardwood floor that were fairly obvious when I stuck my nose up against the front door glass. Since Memorial Day's coming, I expect someone will get to that before then.

If you climb through the pines in the distance to the top of the next hill, the Chariton River valley will spread out before you.

Back in the boneyard business

My goodness it's a beautiful morning here, although cool. Kirksville, Missouri, and smaller places in Adair and Sullivan counties took a hit from tornadoes overnight --- three reportedly killed --- and that's too sad and too close to home for comfort.

I headed out to Salem about 9:30, having declared myself officially back in the cemetery business --- the box of notes devoted to the Salem project finally turned up in the garage yesterday. So the Salem blog has received a few modest updates and more will be forthcoming.

That's Great-great-grandfather Jacob Myers in the foreground here, listing slightly, with his two Hickle grandchildren, Jacob and Rosa, immediately in front of him.

Since that project is fairly well under control now, I've been eyeing Ragtown Cemetery, also in Benton Township and just a couple of miles southeast of Salem, and wondering if I should do that one, too. We'll see. Ragtown, by the way, is not named that because its occupants were raggedy. It's named after Amos Ragsdale, a modest Benton Township entrepreneur who if I'm not mistaken was the first to live on what became first the Beals and then the Lloyd and Bessie May place just off the Transformer Road southwest of Russell.

It's going to be hard to stay in side today, where the most work is needed (what a mess), so I probably won't. I managed last night to get the big computer reassembled although not configured for this new-fangled Internet connection and it's now possible to at least walk into the downstairs bedroom and upstairs study --- almost impossible a day or two ago. So some progress is being made.

Roads less traveled and wet feet

The trouble with taking a road less traveled is that unless you keep an eye on it you're liable to step in something. That would be mud this time of year on the short Chariton River Greenbelt trail, which follows a far older road through the woods that begins at the foot of cemetery hill on the west side of Highway 14 just as you hit the bottom south of town. I came home Monday morning with wet feet.

The trail entrance, leading to a small carpark, is easy to miss. It's just beyond south cemetery driveway, marked by a fading sign. The contrast between the cemetery's manicured hills to the north and the wildness of the bottom is sharp. Lovely as the cemetery is, it can seem rather, well, dead at times. This little wilderness area, on the other hand, is alive this time of year with birdsong and wildflowers.

The caution: This area is subject to flooding when the Chariton overflows its banks as it has this spring, so maintenance is a sysphusian task. Flood waters deposit logs at random and bring trees down and so far nothing has been cleared.



The main route, due west parallel to the cemetery, then angling southwest toward the old river bridge and beyond toward a turn west to two small marsh areas, is evident. It’s also possible to head straight west from the entrance to the river, then swing back along its north bank to the main trail.

The main trail follows the meandering route of the pioneer Chariton-to-Corydon road across the bottom, still in use when my dad was a young man. The old river bridge has a new floor slightly damanged shortly after it was installed by damnfools who decided to see if it would burn.

The old route was abandoned many years ago when the Highway 14 grade was built shooting straight out across the marshy and wooded bottom. At that time a short stretch of the river was ditched due east-west to make a more convenient head-on crossing. That left the area now developed as Pin Oak Marsh south of the river, a low marshy pasture east of the highway to the north and the large area of marsh and woods that the greenbelt trail passes through to the northwest. Cut-off meanders of the old river route form bayous (example at the top of this entry) on both sides of the highway.

You're at Chariton Point down here along the river, a landmark for as long as landmarks have been noted in what now is southern Iowa. Most travelers --- Ioways and their predecessors first and then the Sauk and Fox, occasional itinerant white explorers and beginning in 1846 many of the Mormons who had fled Nauvoo and planned to follow Brigham Young west to the Great Salt Lake valley --- kept to the high ground as it curved broadly northwest then southwest through what now is the city of Chariton around the point.

The name, tradition has it, comes from a French trader named Chariton whose post was somewhere near the point where this southern Iowa native pours itself into the Missouri. That tradition is open to doubt, however, and there are other theories. No one knows exactly how long its been called Chariton although Lewis and Clark noted it as such as they moved up the Missouri from St. Louis during June of 1804 with the Corps of Discovery.


The Chariton rises not too far west in Clarke County, and is small and muddy and meandering here but for the most part free. Just a few miles downstream, the vast Rathbun reservoir corrals its water and the Rathbun dam sets the flow agenda beyond. Its meandering and scenic ways continue, however, into north Missouri. After that, civilization has not been kind and many of its wild meanders have been cut off in one of the most drastic channelization efforts in Missouri.

You can debate the wisdom of that effort until the cows come home and accomplish nothing, although I regret the fact no one alive now has seen the river as it once was. But at least we can enjoy what’s left.

It's worth noting a sorrow attached to this peaceful place. Some years ago, a troubled soul hung himself from a tree (that no longer stands) near the trailhead and I always think of that. But sunshine on a spring morning, sweet williams, buttercups and shooting rockets in the grass and an amazing chorus of birdsong dissipate any lingering darkness.

Live from Chariton: Peace in the valley

Even as we speak, poisonous chemicals are being applied to my front and side yards. Looks like it's goodbye Charlie, hello to a few more pollutants in southern Iowa's drinking water supply. But what's a guy to do?

The neighbor's been trying to match me up with a turf care company for years --- he has lain awake at night I think during the summer listening for the tiny trendrils of Charlie creeping south toward his immaculate grass, having nightmares about dandelions once he fell asleep.

Today, the planets aligned. I came home from a hike through the Chariton River bottom just as the turf guy from Leon pulled up to spray the lawn of the duplex to the north. Like a shot, neighbor was there to investigate. Then to my front door to tell me of the opportunity. Minutes later, the turf guy himself --- a nice young guy from Leon --- was at the front door.

Enter crisis of conscious. I don't like lawn chemicals. On the other hand, I want my neigbor, now in his mid-80s, to be able to sleep at night. Many years ago, I bought a modest life insurance policy just to get rid of the agent. Same principle. Pesky persistence sometimes pays off. In this case, I want to see my neigbors again; just don't want to hear about the lawn.

And I only went part way. Only the front half of the lot --- where Charlie and the dandelions flourish most enthusiastically --- is being treated, and will be treated twice more before winter comes. The back 40 remains unscathed.

Let sleeping snakes lie

I met three frustrated mushroom hunters and one very relaxed northern water snake on the south Red Haw trail late Tuesday, an evening of mixed sun and haze that made photographing the park redbuds, now at their peak, a little frustrating. The photo above was taken along an access road to the park dump when the sun happened to be shining. If you want to see more redbuds, go here --- this photo was taken a couple of years ago when the sun was shining.

That's the snake below, and I apologize for the quality of the photo --- you'll have to click and enlarge to see it. It was a handsome critter, but I don't care for snakes and was not about to get close enough to take a quality portrait with my simple camera. Like most Iowa snakes, the northern is non-venimous, but aggressive if messed with, an enthusiastic biter. Since its saliva contains an anti-coagulant, you'll bleed lavishly if bitten but not die --- unless perhaps a la Indiana Jones you fell into a pit filled with the darned things and managed to bleed to death (or keel over from fright). The northern is a protected species in Iowa, too, so killing one is illegal --- something to keep in mind if you run into one.


The Red Haw woods were full of wildflowers, but the earliest ones are beginning to fade. Plenty of sweet williams (wild phlox), however.


And the red haws were in bloom, too, although there are surprisingly few of those in a park named after them.


According to the folks I met along the lakeside trail, no morels were to be found in that small area of the park although the number of cars and pickups scattered around suggested that plenty of folks were out looking elsewhere, too.

It was good to see so many people using the park, which like most Iowa parks often seems underutilized. Personally, I don't mind --- I like having the place almost to myself. On the other hand, we don't want Iowa lawmakers to get the idea they can save money by closing the gates in these troubled economic times. It's useful to remember that Red Haw was a creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps during the depression of the 1930s.

Speaking of full use, I Googled "Red Haw State Park" the other day just to see what turned up. A report of a wiccan full moon ritual last August in the old shelter house interrupted by a park ranger was among relatively few results. The sponsoring organization apparently was the South Central Iowa Pagan Alliance. Land sakes alive. What would Granny have had to say about that?

Makes no nevermind to me, actually, and its an interesting addition to the uses that old shelter has been put to over years --- weddings, funerals, family reunions, company picnics --- and now wiccan worship. I've actually met a wiccan or two, nice middle-aged mother earth types who had come by their faiths honestly after a good deal of thought and practiced it in a manner no more threatening than a group of United Methodist Women holding a brief service before lunch and an afternoon of quilting.

Some of the younger ones seem to be a little spooky, however --- too much emphasis on the darker side of things. More than likely their folks didn't take them to church and Sunday school, a practice with no guaranteed results but that does seem to offer a useful frame of reference regardless of the outcome.

The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra la

That opening line from Nanki-Poo's and Ko-Ko's duet in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado stuck in my head years ago, and that sometimes has unfortunate results --- as when I burst unexpectedly into song, a habit some find disconcerting. But I've been just humming it to myself today while taking breaks from treks to the greenhouse and planting on a bench in front of the house admiring the front yard's lavish display of dandelions and creeping charlie (also known as creeping jenny and ground ivy).

I'm not the only one who thinks charlie's pretty. Visiting last night with my cousin Audrey, who lives in a Seattle suburb, we got to talking about the redbuds (her husband, Karl's, favorite thing about southern Iowa) and her own affection for charlie. Then there was the carload of California visitors who pulled up a couple of years ago and positively rhapsodized about the blanket of violet spreading toward them from under the trees. So others do appreciate the beauty, although I did talk the Foxes out of taking a start back home to California.

Sadly, my next-door neighbors do not appreciate charlie, so each spring brings with it another minor crisis of conscience. On the one hand, they are wonderful people and I do not enjoy distressing them. On the other, I do not relish the idea of having herbicides sprayed over everything, then draining after the next rain into Lake Rathbun and therefore into much of south-central and southeast Iowa's drinking water supply.

Actually, I blame herbicides for the scope of the front-yard problem. My dad, bowing to peer pressure I suppose since it was uncharacteristic of him to spend money on dandelion or charlie control, had the lawn treated for several years. But after he died and the place was occupied only on weekends I missed connecting with the lawn care company and let it slide. Within a year the dandelions and charley were back and thensome.

The neighbors worry especially about charley creeping their way, so I suppose I'll go out again and pull some of the worst offenders. That gives people who drive by something to talk about and always reminds me of my old friend Ruth Elvebak.

Ruth, about my age now when I knew her then, was a daughter of one of Winnebago County's pioneering Norwegian emigrant families with a homeplace up on the Minnesota state line whose life had taken a turn somewhat uncharacteristic when she was young for a good Norwegian Lutheran girl expected to marry and reproduce. She painted instead of doing either and spent much of her time as a street artist first in New Orleans and then for the most part when I knew her in San Miguel de Allende. Come summer, however, she always came home to a somewhat dilapidated old house in Thompson where many sunny hours were spent sitting on the lawn pulling creeping charley with Zen-like focus. Fresh air, sunshine --- guess there could be worse ways to while away the day.

I can understand the motive behind quests for perfect lawns --- in a world where much is out of our control that at least is something we can control, sort of, barring uncooperative neighbors, like me, who become part of the problem. And I feel bad about it. I really do. But that will pass when both the dandelions and charlie stop blooming.

The tipping point

The tipping point came at about 2 o'clock this afternoon when I came home from Pamida with a new push lawnmower. Dragged the box out of the back of the pickup and into the garage, extracted the lawnmower from the box, oiled and gassed it up and went to work. But now, with that lawnmower in the garage, the pickup won't fit. It's finally come to this. The garage door is shut. You will not see inside.

On Monday, I'm going to see if I can get the card table out of the closet under the stairs and set it up out there, then begin hauling stuff out of the house in order to make more room for what's already stuffed inside and begin sorting the stuff packed in boxes stacked around the walls of the garage so it can go inside in an orderly manner. This could go on all summer.

The riding lawnmower's fine, by the way, but there's a rocking chair on top of it and several things in front of it and I needed a new push lawnmower to trim with anyway. Besides I like to mow lawn --- pushing the mower --- when I have time. I followed my dad's rule with the new mower --- buy the cheapest you can find with a Briggs and Stratton engine.

The old push lawnmower was about 15 years old and I think we killed it with kindness last year. I hadn't given it any fresh oil in years, but Darrin gave it a dose at the start of the season and just as the season ended it expired in a puff of smoke.

Got about half the lawn done --- everything that shows from the font. The rest will have to wait until the weekend Minneapolis trek is over.

Lots to do outside. I've never really had time to work on the lawn and lord knows in needs it. Nor have I really had time to garden --- filling narrow beds around the little gray Quaker house with whatever struck my fancy and building on what my mother already had planted there. But nothing more. It could be an interesting summer.

One job that needs to be done immediately is to move some of the purple coneflowers out of places where the pretty but aggressively pesky prairie flowers have planted themselves out to the rear of the back 40. Need to do that before they get bigger than they already are.

Took me about five hours yesterday to close out in Mason City --- filled the dumpster again (didn't know that much stuff was left) and don't know when I've been so happy to crawl in the truck and head out. Didn't even look back.

Put off cancelling utilities until Thursday and Qwest was a breeze --- got a customer rep right away and got the job done. Keep in mind, Qwest has a gazillion customers.

Then I tried Alliant Energy, two-bit Midwest utility with aspirations, which also serves Chariton. Another of those aggravating telephone systems: "Welcome to Alliant Energy. Please Press 1 if your house has exploded or a loved one has been electrocuted."

I listened to all the options and still couldn't figure out which button I should press, since "cancel service" was not among the options. Finally decided on "customer service" and got the automated message, "all our of representatives are helping customers right now; your estimated wait will be between 12 and 20 minutes."

Twelve and 20 minutes. You've got to be kidding me. Called back two or three more times. Similar message. Finally just before noon, got "seven to 11 minutes." All right!

Actually it took 20 minutes, but I waited --- I figured it would confuse them no end if I called later from Chariton since they nail you by tracking your phone number. I called it the zen of waiting and it wouldn't have been that bad if they hand't kept repeating the message, "your call is important to us and that's why our customer service representatives are available 24 hours a day seven days a week."

What they don't tell you is that they only have one customer service representative who works long hours, poor woman.

Once I got through, the rep was extremely pleasant and helpful and we got the job done. I declined, however, to take the survey designed to gauge how well she had performed. She was fine. It's the damnfools who run customer service at Alliant who are the problem. I suppose it has something to do with competition. Qwest needs business therefore the system is user-friendly; Alliant already has your business, you've got nowhere else to go and it really doesn't care.

I may be a Democrat, but by gum I recognize a benefit of capitalistic competition when I see one.